Dispensing systems for products such as soap, air care, and paper towels are widely used in millions of private and public washroom facilities around the world. As is well known, such systems can be manual, semi-automatic or automatic systems that require different types of user-interaction with the systems to dispense soap or paper towels. A manual system typically requires a user to physically displace a button, crank arm or the like to move mechanical components to dispense the material, a semi-automatic system may require a user to touch a button to initiate electrical activation of mechanical components and an automatic system may detect the presence of a user to initiate electrical activation of mechanical components.
Increasingly, from a public health perspective, there is a desire to increase the deployment of semi-automatic and preferably fully-automatic dispensing systems in public washroom facilities, primarily to reduce or minimize physical user contact with the dispensing equipment and thereby reduce the risk of spreading of pathogens between users.
However, semi-automatic and automatic dispensing systems provide issues to property owners and managers particularly for those owners or managers of large buildings or facilities that may have hundreds or thousands of washrooms within their properties. In particular, as is well known, dispensing systems require that the consumable product, for example, a paper towel product or a liquid soap product must be replaced on a regular basis as the product is consumed. As such, the property owners/managers will employ substantial numbers of people who are responsible for replenishing the consumable product within the dispenser.
In the case of semi-automatic and automatic dispensing systems, most of these dispensers utilize a single or multiple batteries to provide the energy to complete a dispensing cycle. In most designs, the rate of consumption of the consumable product is substantially greater than the power consumption rate within the batteries. That is, the paper towels within a dispenser may have to be replaced several times a day whereas in many designs, the batteries in the dispenser may only have to be changed on a monthly time scale. However, different washrooms may have substantially different usage rates, such that the batteries in one washroom may expire more rapidly than those in a nearby washroom. As a result, it is often very difficult to efficiently react to expired batteries across a number of washrooms as over time, the expiry of batteries in dispensers become essentially random events. Importantly, if batteries are not replaced when needed, users often become frustrated with the dispensing equipment and may end up either touching a number of surfaces of the equipment which must thereafter be cleaned or worse, inflicting damage to the dispenser. In addition, the manufacturer of the consumable is also losing revenue due to the inoperative dispensing equipment not dispensing the consumable product.
Each of these factors can have an affect on the adoption and use of these types of dispensers where consumers may in fact learn to avoid certain types of dispensers based on their previous experiences of interacting with a particular type of dispenser. As a result, improvements in the reliability of a dispenser can have significant effects on the adoption and use of such products.
Further still, in large properties, such as a hospital or an airport, the time required to replace batteries is substantial. In many dispensers, in order to replace the batteries, a significant number of steps must be taken to remove the expired batteries and replace them. For example, battery compartments often require additional keys or steps to specifically remove and replace the batteries than the relatively simpler steps of replacing a consumable. As can be appreciated, there are significant costs in terms of personnel having to both recognize and react to an inoperative dispenser.
One solution to these problems is to incorporate a battery into the consumable product either as a separate component or as an integral component of its packaging. As a separate component, each package of consumable product would include a battery thus making the battery available to be replaced each time the consumable is replaced. As described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,209,752, a battery can form an integral component of the consumable packaging wherein the user replaces both the consumable and the battery simply by inserting new consumable packaging within the dispenser. That is, every time a consumable product is replaced within a dispenser, the dispenser receives a new battery to operate the dispenser. Typically, in these designs, the consumable product packaging has two electrodes that frictionally connect to corresponding electrodes on the dispenser such that power is transferable from the consumable product packaging to the controller/drive system of the dispenser.
While overcoming a number of problems as described above in regards to matching different servicing schedules between consumables and batteries, one particular problem arising from this technology is the potential for electrode corrosion particularly when both the dispenser and refill are stationary such as within an air care or soap dispenser product. That is, as today's dispensing equipment are typically low voltage and direct current devices that are usually installed in the relatively humid environment of a washroom, these conditions are known to encourage metal migration, galvanic corrosion and/or cause corrosion or resistance build up between the contacts. As the resistance between electrical contacts increases, the efficiency of the system decreases which may cause systems performance to decrease and/or fail prematurely. In other words, while overcoming one problem of efficiently changing batteries, this technology can produce other problems in dispensing systems. Thus, there has been a need for a power system that combines a battery with the consumable product but that does not lead to electrode corrosion.
In another aspect, there continues to be a need for companies that manufacture dispensing systems to protect their investments in the design of their dispensers by preventing the use of other manufacturer's consumable products within their dispensers. That is, as is known, when a manufacturer commercializes a dispenser, such dispensers are typically sold at a relatively low cost based on the expectation that the subsequent sales of consumables to a customer will provide the ongoing revenue/profit to underwrite the cost of developing the dispenser. As a result, there continues to be a need for systems that efficiently prevent the use of unauthorized consumable products within a dispensing system and that provide effective keying between a consumable product and a dispenser.
Further still, there has been a need for systems that more effectively manage power within the systems. More specifically, as noted above, while a power cell (eg. a battery) can be incorporated into a consumable product as described above, there has been a need to minimize the amount of power that may be wasted in a battery that is within a consumable product.
For example, there has been a need to ensure that when a consumable product such as a soap cartridge is fully used, that the battery associated within that cartridge is effectively depleted at the same time such that when the battery is disposed, it is in a depleted state. That is, it is not desirable to discard a battery when the battery has only been fractionally depleted.
Further still, there has been a need to eliminate or reduce the need for serviceable batteries within a dispenser and provide a system where power can be effectively transferred between different locations within in a dispensing system in an efficient manner. That is, it is desirable to have a system that effectively eliminates the need for operator involvement with a dispenser itself in regards to its power requirements.
Further still, there has been a need for an energy management system that minimizes delays in activation from the time a user approaches a dispenser and the time it takes for the product to be dispensed. That is, as is well known if an automatic or semi-automatic dispenser does not initiate dispensing of a product within approximately 0.2-0.3 seconds, the consumer will typically react to this delay as an indicator of possible non-operability of the dispenser and which may then lead to frustrated or improper interaction with the dispenser.
Further still, there has been a need for an energy system that can quickly enable a low voltage/low current power source within the consumable to be conditioned such that it can be effectively utilized within higher current motors within a dispensing system.
Further still, there has also been a need to be able to capture stray energy within a dispensing system to improve the overall energy management efficiency. As well, there has been a need to reduce the environmental impact of disposal of larger batteries and reduce the amount of wasted energy that may be thrown away when consumable products may have been depleted.